Overcoming the Fear of the Phone

"Coaching changed my business and my life."

Too many agents act like they are afraid of picking up the phone and calling their leads. However, they aren’t really afraid of picking up the phone. They are afraid of the rejection that may come from making the calls. But the truth is, agents who pick up the phone make more money. It’s as simple as that. Discover the 5 steps you need to take to overcome your own fear of the phone!

Overcoming The Fear of The Phone

I hear this all the time…”I’m afraid of picking up the phone. I’m afraid of making dials…” Here’s what I can tell you. Number one: you’re not afraid of the phone, you’re afraid of the rejection that might come with picking up the phone and making the sales call. If I were to ask you to call your mom, you’d do it. You wouldn’t be afraid of calling her.

We need to put our fears into proper perspective so that we don’t make them into something that they’re not. If we say it’s a phone issue, every time we see a phone or associate the phone with sales, it’s going to set off a negative trigger in our minds. What we want to do is understand what we’re truly fearful of, which is that somebody might actually say no to us, that somebody might say that they don’t want to use us as their Realtor, that they don’t want us to be the person that they ultimately work with or maybe that they’re not ready right now.

Truthfully if you can’t overcome this fear of rejection, you’ll never succeed in a sales type of business, or in any business, because any business requires that you put yourself out there for rejection so that you can also put yourself out there for acceptance. This all involves being able to put ourselves out there and take a risk.

Don’t let a little no keep you from big success.

What’s the worst that could happen? I was having this conversation the other day with some clients. I was talking them through their struggle to overcome the phone and that rejection and I said “what are you afraid of?” and they said “getting a no.” So I said “what’s the worst that can happen? Logically, I want you to take a second and walk through when somebody says no, what is the WORST thing that could absolutely happen?” And they go “nothing.” Right? So you just pick up the phone and make another call.

What happens is we work these things up into big, big demons and big monsters and in reality, they are just small things. We are taking this little no, this little event, and we are blowing it up into this big monstrous thing that is ruining our day. But when you think about it this way, you realize it’s not that big of a deal.

It’s not personal.

It’s not about you. Too often we personalize or we attach ourselves to the outcome rather than realizing that any no that we get is very rarely about us. Or even if it is about you, so what? There are a lot of other people that are willing to say yes to you, that are willing to use you as their Realtor, that are willing to sign on board with you because they like you, they love you, and they respect you.

Think about all the people that you’ve helped serve. All the clients, all the friends or family or the sphere of influence that have used you to buy or to sell a house and think about how happy they are! Those are the people that you want to work with and if somebody says no to you, they probably weren’t the right person to begin with. It’s not personal. Divorce yourself from that outcome so that ultimately if you get a no, it’s no big deal. You’ve got all these other people who are waiting for you to call them so that they can say yes to your service.

Operate from a position of abundance.

I was talking with somebody and they said “what if I screw up a lead? I’ve got all these leads, what happens if I don’t close any of them?” It’s this position of scarcity, as in “I may never get another lead again. Somebody may never call me again about buying a house or selling a house. And if I don’t close one of these, I’m screwed for life!” However, you will always have more opportunities as long as you look at it and say “you know what? There’s opportunity every where we look.”

Every time you turn around, every person you come in contact with, everybody you meet, every home that’s out there at some point is going to need to be sold. The question is are you going to be there to help those people when they are ready?

I was talking with a very experienced Realtor recently and he said something like this “last month, I lost 36 deals.” And I was like “woah! 36 deals?! That’s a lot of deals.” And he goes, “yeah, but I closed 12.” The idea is that for every deal you lose, you’re going to close more. There’s going to be other people so if you lose a deal, if you lose a lead, don’t stress out about it. You’re going to lose deals all day long.

Laugh at it and allow yourself to make mistakes. Give yourself permission to lose a lead, lose a deal, blow up on a call and just throw everything out the window. At some point, you just have to laugh at yourself. I mean, think about how many times you’ve seen me make outtakes on these very videos, because at some point, I’m going to screw up. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. We just have to get back on the horse and realize it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to lost a deal, lose a sale, because there’s going to be more out there for you and for me and for everybody else. Give yourself permission to fail.

It’s their loss!

If you’re good at what you do, if you’re passionate at what you do and you know deep down inside “I’m good at this”, then anybody who says no to you, it’s their loss, not yours. They lost out on the opportunity to work with you.

Plan time to make your calls.

If you’re just wanting to make your calls whenever you have time, you’ll always find an excuse to not make your calls because making sales calls is kind of uncomfortable. In another video that I did a couple of weeks ago, we talked about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. One of the ways you can do that with your calls is to plan it in. Block out the prospecting time. Block out that call time. Be prepared. Know who you’re going to call and what you’re going to say. Run through your dialogues and scripts before you ever make that first call so that at 9 am or 10 am (whenever you’ve blocked out that time), you pick up the phone and you start dialing. You jump right in and you make it happen because it’s blocked out and it’s there and it’s ready to go.

Visualize your testimonials.

You have people that love your service, who (as I mentioned before) use you, love you, and would refer you. Print out a list of all of those testimonials and put it up on the wall in your office or in your cubicle right above your phone. So every time you get a no, just read down that list of everybody going “oh my gosh, you were amazing to work with” or “you held my hand. You were such an amazing Realtor. I’m so grateful for all the work that you did, for how you helped us through this stressful process…” Because remember: the no isn’t personal, but those testimonials are very, very personal.

Don’t be afraid of making those calls. Overcome it. You know that deep down inside you’re good at what you do. Don’t let a little no prevent you from the big success that you’re capable of and that you ultimately deserve.